We Were a Nielsen Family unit — Here's What It Was Like

The Ratings Game is a weeklong serial exploring what the new world of Idiot box ratings means for your favorite shows.

I'm what the TV business concern calls a non-writing executive producer on Fresh Off the Boat and The Grinder. What does that mean? I like to compare myself to a eating house director: I'm a part of putting these things together from the offset — from thought to script and and so staffing and crewing, I do everything I tin on a daily ground to proceed these shows running and on the air. Plus, I'm lucky enough to exist surrounded by incredibly talented people, like Nahnatchka Khan, Randall Park, Constance Wu, Jarrad Paul and Andy Mogel, Rob Lowe, Fred Vicious, and my partner of many years, Jake Kasdan. And, forth with all employees of the network-TV business, my fate is determined by the daily inflow of ratings.

People often compare it to getting a study card, and if you lot work in Tv set, it'due south Nielsen giving you your grade. Though there are arguably better and more than mod methods of gathering viewer data, for now, Nielsen is oftentimes the standard for how our network-Boob tube fates are decided. For many who work in the Telly concern, the Nielsen household — a family whose TV-viewing habits are monitored by the inquiry company — is like a unicorn. Somewhere in America are these magical homes with the ability to decide whether a show —your bear witness, which you requite everything to — lives or dies. Okay, that'south extreme. Perhaps sometimes. Simply on a weekly basis, while making these shows, information technology can bum y'all out or pick yous up. Either way, it turns out that the reality of a Nielsen household is far from magical.

I know this because I was a Nielsen household.

In 2006, Nielsen allow an unemployed me represent roughly one percentage of all TV homes in L.A., and half of 1 percent nationally. At the time, I lived in a tiny apartment in Alhambra, the gateway to the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. Alhambra is nice and has pretty skillful Chinese nutrient, but it is not what most people would consider magical.

Let me dorsum up and give y'all some details on how an immature idiot like myself screwed with the organisation.

In 2006, I was newly married, living with my wife and domestic dog, when we received a door-hanger flyer to consider becoming a Nielsen family. My married woman was intrigued, equally her main hobby was watching television. In fact, she'southward unusually methodical about information technology. Every autumn season, she creates a grid of the TV schedule, colour-coded to indicate the shows she will sentinel and what she anticipates will be canceled or renewed. Her predictions tend to exist eerily authentic. Then when the opportunity rose to go viewers who could actually be counted and heard, we seized it. We became a Nielsen household, despite the rather significant fact that I worked in the entertainment industry. I worked in movies, not television, and I was in between movies at the time, so technically unemployed – or at least that's how I justified it.

A week later, Paul from Nielsen came by our apartment. Paul set up every idiot box with a black box, accompanied by a chaotic clutter of electronics behind the set. All this equipment connected to our internet and was used to feed our viewing information to servers nightly. There were now rules to watching telly. Every time we turned on the Idiot box, we were required to log in. In that location were viii buttons. My wife was No. ane; I was No. 2. If nosotros had whatsoever additional people watching, they would exist logged in as guests iii through viii. Full disclosure: I often logged in my dog Joe every bit invitee No. 3. (He sat next to me, so I thought that should count.) Every 15 to 20 minutes, the lights on the black box would kickoff blinking to prompt the states to confirm if we were still engaged and watching. This was especially interesting when you fell asleep watching TV and so woke to a barrage of lights in your face, every bit if you were tripping on drugs or having a seizure of some sort.

Besides the procedural aspects of viewing television as a Nielsen family, in that location were the regular surveys. Paul came over every few weeks to cheque on the equipment and enquire a battery of questions. "Did you lot buy a new car?" "Any changes to the household?" "Did y'all get a new job?" No, dude, still here talking to you at ii in the afternoon. All this data was apparently fed to a organization that would create profiles for who was watching what in America. For our troubles, we were paid $xv a month. I was unemployed at the fourth dimension, so, yes, we partially did it for the money, too.

During our time every bit a Nielsen family, my married woman took her duties seriously, while I had fun with it — perchance too much. I fiddled with the number of guests viewing at our home, and frequently hooked up people I worked with and liked — for example, David Duchovny, whose first flavor of Californication had but debuted in 2007. We had a lot of "viewing parties" for that show, though I never told David almost it. And I'm still convinced that my viewing habits helped go along Chuck (starring my friend Zachary Levi — I also never told Zach) on for 5 seasons. I thought of myself as their silent ratings Obi-Wan, watching over their shows.

I'm sure at that place are plenty of Nielsen households out in that location that accept this very seriously. I just didn't. So, to Nielsen, I apologize. To the networks … I apologize? Isn't it karmically fitting that my life now revolves around something I didn't have seriously? My Wednesday mornings during TV flavour, later on Fresh Off the Gunkhole and The Grinder air simultaneously on different networks (no longer the example come January), usually start with me involuntarily jolting awake at 5 a.m., already nervous. Casey Kyber, the wonderful enquiry exec at 20th, forwards me an email with the LPMs. If it's bully news on one of the shows, I'll send the showrunner a text. But usually I expect for the Fast Nationals at eight a.m.* and commiserate with my partner Jake nearly them, and thus begins my dissever personality. Based on the results, I transport two dissimilar sets of text messages to the respective showrunner(s), and for the rest of the solar day, when visiting those sets or writers rooms, switch back and forth between mild disappointment and momentary relief. I had i week recently where information technology was Champagne in one product office and, the other one, well, no Champagne. Hither I am — half sad, half happy, all anxious. I'll do this again in three days, then later once again in 7, when the DVR numbers come in.

Please exist skilful to me, Nielsen households.

*Last week, Flim-flam declared information technology will no longer be recognizing Live + Same Day ratings.  I promise to slumber in after on Wednesday mornings and delay my anxiety to after in the week.

We Were a Nielsen Family—Here's What Information technology Was Like